Chapter 307 - 305: Crime Scene Analysis (First Update)

Chapter 307: Chapter 305: Crime Scene Analysis (First Update)

The crowd listened, feeling a shiver run through their hearts, and many people couldn’t help but look around in fear, as if afraid that Xu Jing’s human-like beast was right next to them.

Xu Jing, however, looked at the back door leading to the backyard inside the house and said, "Everyone, don’t be overly anxious. If I’m not mistaken, the culprit has already left, and moreover..."

She slightly frowned and said, "He left barefoot."

Barefoot?

The villager who first brought Xu Jing over was named Gold, and he followed Xu Jing’s gaze. He saw several clear bloody footprints on the ground near the back door, which were larger and wider than those of a common man, and they looked like they were left by someone without shoes.

Judging by the arrangement of those footprints, while the person leaving the footprints had wandered in the house, several continuous footprints indicated that they went towards the backyard.

There were bloodstains and various footprints all over the floor of the house, except near the back door, where only that conspicuously large footprint was present. If that footprint was left by the culprit, then after the crime, he should have exited through the back door.

However, Wang Man and his family didn’t seem to have approached that area near the back door during the entire incident.

One of the villagers couldn’t help but tremble as he said, "How could this murderer not even wear shoes, he’s simply... simply like a savage..."

Another villager immediately said, "Maybe he did it on purpose? I heard the old Bai at the village entrance talk about cases solved by the prefectural yamen, saying some experts at the yamen solve cases by analyzing footprints left by culprits..."

Amidst their discussion, Xu Jing followed the bloody footprints from the back door, heading outside. To her surprise, the footprints outside were equally clear, leading toward the back door of Wang Man’s courtyard. It seemed that the culprit exited through the main gate of Wang Man’s backyard.

Beside this series of bloody footprints, there was a crooked blood line, looking like it was made by the culprit dragging a blood-soaked axe on the ground.

Xu Jing followed the footprints all the way out of Wang Man’s backyard. Behind Wang Man’s house was a narrow country path. Alongside the path lay vast stretches of fields, crisscrossed with ridges. As it was the beginning of winter, the fields were gray and barren, with only some wild grass. This made the bloody footprints extending from the path very stark, hard for anyone to ignore.

Judging by the direction of the footprints, the culprit had headed straight across the fields, moving further away.

Gold followed Xu Jing out and naturally saw the footprints on the ground. He couldn’t help but grit his teeth, "This criminal is so brazen, not even bothering to hide his footprints, as if afraid we don’t know where he’s gone!"

"Goddess, should we... should we organize some people to follow the footprints?"

The direction the culprit went was away from the village.

But who knows if this is just a distraction? The thought that he might pretend to leave, yet actually be lurking in the village, waiting to strike someone else, made Gold’s heart tremble.

This kind of inhumane murderer, who knows what he might do.

"Wait a moment."

Xu Jing turned back to the house; this murderer was too dangerous and always gave her a weird feeling.

These villagers were not from the yamen, and before she figured out her strange feeling about this case, she wouldn’t let them take risks.

She carefully avoided the bloody footprints on the ground and walked back into the house, meticulously examining each corpse.

Firstly, Wang Man, who was lying near the door, was alive when the axe sliced through his waist, which was his fatal injury, while other wounds inflicted with the axe were postmortem injuries.

Besides that, his face, hands, and feet had multiple abrasions and subcutaneous hemorrhages. The obvious defensive wounds on his arms indicated that Wang Man had fought with others before dying and had been completely overpowered.

However, apart from the fatal wound at his waist, the other injuries he sustained while alive didn’t look like weapon-inflicted injuries. Many appeared to be purely from fists and feet, or from blunt objects — the kind one might get from being hit by a stick or the hilt of a knife.

The condition of Wang Man’s son’s body was similar to his; he was beheaded and died instantly, and after death, the body was wantonly hacked by the murderer. The son also had pre-mortem injuries, similar to Wang Man’s, inflicted by fists, feet, and blunt objects.

The bodies of Wang Man’s daughter-in-law and little grandson were also similar. The daughter-in-law had been brutally cut in half by someone, and the child on the ground had died from excessive bleeding after being hacked and having both feet severed.

The only one who hadn’t died by the axe was Mrs. Ye; she died from a severe head injury after hitting something.

Xu Jing carefully examined the wound on her head and then compared it with the items in the room. Eventually, she walked up to a fallen table; one of its corners was stained with dried blood, and Mrs. Ye’s head had likely hit this spot.

Some villagers watched in bewilderment as Xu Jing examined here and there without saying anything, until finally, Gold cautiously asked, "Goddess, what are you doing?"

Xu Jing gave him a look and said, "I’m trying to see what exactly happened in this house when the crime occurred."

The crowd looked on in astonishment.

Can she really tell?

Xu Jing paused and said, "Two groups came to this crime scene. Apart from Mrs. Ye, the other victims’ injuries were caused by these two groups. If I’m right, those unknown soldiers who arrived yesterday were the first ones to break in. They did the same as they did in other households — wreaking havoc and looting all the valuables from Wang Man’s home. During this process, Wang Man’s family had a conflict with these soldiers and were severely beaten by them, but the soldiers didn’t plan to kill them. The fist and blunt object injuries on their bodies were left at that time.

During this process, the only person who was seriously injured and lost their life was Mrs. Ye. She probably had a conflict with those soldiers and was pushed onto the table, hitting her head on the left corner of the table and dying."

As Xu Jing described, the crowd seemed to see the soldiers breaking into Wang Man’s home last night, recklessly causing destruction before swaggering away, involuntarily clenching their fists and gritting their teeth.

This was what almost every household experienced last night.

But, if that was the case, only Mrs. Ye would be dead from Wang Man’s family. How did such a tragedy come to be?

Continuing, Xu Jing walked to the back door and said, "After the soldiers left, shortly after, another uninvited guest came to Wang Man’s home. Judging by where Wang Man and his son died, the intruder came through the back door, and typically, people wouldn’t have axes in their living room. So, the intruder brought the weapon with him.

Wang Man and his son must have realized something was amiss immediately and tried to escape but could only flee toward the front door, which is why their bodies were found near there. The murderer should have killed them first."

The villagers listened, stunned, and one couldn’t help but ask, "Goddess, how do you know the murderer killed Wang Man and his son first, and not his daughter-in-law or grandson?"

With so many dead in this house, how can you tell who died first and who died later?